Building brand awareness through talent acquisition One of the world's largest and most dynamic hotel management companies, the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group has a portfolio of more than 1,360 hotels in operation and under development globally. Having grown rapidly over the last four years, the Group has more than 96 hotels in operation here in Asia Pacific, and as a result is constantly looking for talented new employees to work either front of house or in the executive offices of their ever-growing chain.

Carlson Rezidor originally signed up for SilkRoad’s OpenHire solution in 2009, with a view to developing a standardised, user-friendly system that would streamline their recruitment process and improve visibility. However, having implemented the system with a limited number of properties in the initial application, in 2011 the Group decided to extend OpenHire to every hotel in Asia Pacific. The goal was to build awareness of the company brand and its hotel brand portfolio and create one standard place for candidates to visit where they could view all available jobs and easily apply for roles. They also wanted to create a common database where they could store CVs from unsuccessful applicants for future reference.

Background

For more information: asia@silkroad.com | silkroad.com

“Obviously the career site looks much fresher look now, but for us one of the greatest benefits is that we have seen a marked increase in people visiting the

website and applying for roles.

Nina Gothberg Director, Human Resources Asia Pacific Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group

How SilkRoad helped the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group streamline their recruitment process, increase the number of applications they received,

and introduce potential savings of USD500k.

Carlson Rezidor Career Portal

A regional solution Having made the decision to roll OpenHire out to all properties, Carlson Rezidor needed to implement the solution across several countries in the region, tailoring the system in order to meet their unique requirements. In order to ensure the implementation process went smoothly, SilkRoad worked hand in hand with the hotel’s regional team to develop an end user experience that was simple and clear cut. The whole process took just three months from start to finish.

As a result, Carlson Rezidor has been able to significantly streamline their recruitment process, and reduce the amount of time their hotel managers spend sifting through CVs. Further, because all applications come directly through OpenHire, they were no longer inundated with emails every time a job was posted. Screening candidates became quick and easy, and more importantly for the hotel chain, unsuccessful applications could be stored centrally and accessed easily at a later date, should a more suitable position come up.

Additionally, SilkRoad helped redevelop Carlson Rezidor’s career portal, creating a much fresher look that is highly intuitive and simple to use. The new site enabled applicants to view all open positions around the region, and has resulted in a marked increase in visitors and applicants. The career portal can also be linked directly to other websites, job boards and social media platforms such LinkedIn, which was a real value add for the Group.

The career site also gave the hotel chain an efficient way to deal with the many walk-in applications they receive on a daily basis. These candidates tend to turn up with a hard copy CV, so now the hotel can simply give them a dedicated card for the site so they can submit their resume at a later stage.

And finally, SilkRoad embedded Google Analytics within the site, which enabled Carlson Rezidor to measure the performance of the career website. Using this tool, the company tracked a 65 percent increase in traffic to the site, translating to potential savings of USD500k in recruitment costs. Projected savings account for potential recruiter fees as the company have already hired 601 people this year.

Solution

An obvious choice While Carlson Rezidor looked at several options when the time came to choose a regional recruitment platform, in the end OpenHire was a natural choice. Not only were they already familiar with the benefits the solution provided, the fact they were able to simply go back and change the process to accommodate an extended reach rather than start again from scratch was a clear plus. Additionally however, Carlson Rezidor felt that SilkRoad’s solution offered comparative benefits to other solutions on the market, but at a much more competitive rate.

End-to-End Talent Management | silkroad.comTalent Acquisition | Talent Development | HRMS | Talent Portal

Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group in Asia Pacific Partners with

“SilkRoad made the implementation process easy, working hand in hand with us

to address our unique requirements and make sure the end user experience was

simple and intuitive.

Nina Gothberg Director, Human Resources Asia Pacific Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group

End-to-End Talent Management | silkroad.comTalent Acquisition | Talent Development | HRMS | Talent Portal

65% Increase in career site traffic

The Problem !No standard regional recruitment platform; OpenHire only implemented with selected properties

Managers were overwhelmed by the number of applications and emails they personally received

Needed a unified career portal where potential candidates could search for opportunities all over the region

No back-office repository where resumes could be stored and searched at a later date

The Solution The Results !Streamlined recruitment process across properties in Asia Pacific

Significantly reduced man hours required for each new hire

Intuitive, easy to use career portal launched

Enabled the group to hire 601 new employees year-to-date

Potential savings of USD500k in recruitment costs

At a glance…

601 Number of people hired this year

28% Increase in traffic to job listings page 55% Increase in

number of new visitors

1MIN Average extra time spent on career site per visitor

Online recruitment solution

500KUSD

Potential savings in recruitment costs